Finding out that you’re just an NPC in a world that’s not real and your existence can be erased with just a snap of a finger. They captured the existential dread GummiGoo felt perfectly.
Yup. And now I'm wondering if something similar will happen to Pomni (but only after re-encountering a stripped down Gummy Gu in a different scenario).
@@Valerion203 Yeah...that's the look of a being who messed up heavily in the past, that is PTSD in his eyes, or whatever can count as PTSD to an AI like Cain
Something just occurred to me: The reason Jax was being so pissy, and so dead set on choosing violence, and so disappointed when that option was taken away from him, is because he was trying to use that violence as a catharsis factor and a way to vent his own sorrows at Kaufmo's death. This whole episode is basically him going through the "anger" stage of grief... In which case his carefree attitude in regards to Kaufmo abstracting in the pilot could have been him going through "denial"...
@@steveconvertibles3352 I guess we'll see? (Though, considering the mindspace he seems to be in, I kinda get the feeling that he tends to get stuck on "anger".)
I think it’s not so much grief at Kaufmo’s death, rather at the futility of the situation. I believe he is using the catharsis to distract from how hopeless and hellish their existence has become. Ragatha seems to be toxically positive, and Zooble is apathetic. These are all coping mechanisms and I theorize this is what the series will be unpacking.
@Soy_boi Could be six of one, a half-dozen the other. Jax copes with the futile hopelessness of his existence by injecting little sparks of chaos into the Circus through his pranks on the other residents, but whenever someone abstracts, it's a reminder of how ineffectual and maladaptive his coping strategy actually _is,_ and he needs to find something _more_ to keep his mind off his own looming despair.
The teapots are a reference to the utah teapot, one of the first 3d models made using bezier curves instead of using precise measurements. It's basically an in joke between 3d modellers
Even in 3D lessons at university/college (if you went into game design or animation) it is one of the very first models you make that is not symmetrical or using mirrored shaping. Almost every 3D modeller has had to make one at one point
@@hitecfox605 Seems so. Perhaps once NPCs reach a certain point he can't? He suggested he can mix up humans and NPCs so somehow there's no easily noted way for him to tell the difference
One detail i kinda like is how in the nightmare, it was Caine, Ragatha and Jax who were looking down on her Caine due to being the showrunner she blames for all of this Ragatha who she thinks hates her for what happened yesterday and Jax because....Jax but in the nightmare callback near the end of the episode, the ones who hold onto her from falling are Ragatha, Zooble, Gangle and Kinger, showing she realized Ragatha held no hard feelings and that they care for one another Jax and Caine are completely absent though, for...obvious reasons
Which I think might be an incorrect impression in her part. Jax would probably be one of the people reaching for her. He was oddly supportive this episode. When they got to the trucks, he talked about wanting to jump across and start blasting. But then he immediately gave up that role to Pomni when she was having a hard time. It's like he's the biggest jerk possible to cover up when he's being nice.
@Airier I think you've got a pretty good read on Jax's personality. His abrasive attitude feels like a facade, a persona he's developed to mask his fear and insecurity from everyone -- making trouble for his fellow performers is one of the only ways he can prove to himself that he's still got agency within the Circus. 'I _prank,_ therefore I _am,'_ I guess you could say.
@@Airier i mean yeah you're mostly correct however this vision is completely on her perspective, and she sees him just as a Jerk who makes everyone else miserable for his own entertainment
... Ya know, I'd like to say it's been a while since I saw Willy Wonka, but I can't even claim that. My wife just brought up a review of the original movie so I just got that refresher recently. I have no excuse. 😅
"Did he sound smarter when he couldn't see?" I mean...no? i see it as just Kinger having a moment of clarity in his madness Funnily enough, the dude is the most well adjusted "participant" in the circus right now despite the fact he's literally lost his mind, because he's lost it to the extent that he cannot abstract, as that seems to happen when you fully dissociate with your mind, something he can't do, everything is real to him in a way, even what is just in his head, he's so insane that he doesnt even question anything in the slightest though, just like anyone, he has moments of clarity where he returns to his old self, im sure we will get more of those the dude HAS seen the entire circus troupe around him get abstracted multiple times, considering even Caine has lost count of how long he's been here (or if he does know, he's not told anyone weirdly enough)
There's a problem though. Caine said he may not be able to tell NPCs and Humans. Kinger thus far is the only character we seem to know has been around potentially as long as Caine, the world doesn't seem to really bother him, he knows too much about the system, and seems to be almost unaffected with anything going on around him. It's possible, horrifying but possible that like bubble and caine, he may not be a player and is in fact an NPC who has lived for such a long time he's basically ran out of RAM space to contain any immediate information around him anymore.
@@tsunertoo9149 I don't think he can be an NPC, or at the very least can abstract, since there's a door in the Pilot that had a Queen chess piece with an X over the picture that was similar to Kinger. The X'd out image shows that the Queen piece abstracted/died and since Kinger is still there, it could be a simple explanation as to why he is crazy, he lost the queen.
One theory I've been seeing is that while all these characters have been there for vastly different amounts of time 'in game', it's entirely possible that The Amazing Digital Circus is running at an accelerated clock speed. It's possible that all the characters were uploaded within a single 'work-day'. Kinger (and Queenie) were uploaded at the start of the day, others were added sporadically over the hours IRL but in game, months and years. Jax is supposedly the youngest, in his late teens, and may be an unpaid intern, summer student, or boss's brat who wanted to try out the headset. Pomni tried it on right before the office closed for the day... and they've got the whole night ahead of them.
Fun fact, the whole scene with the Fudge is a reference to an old Raggedy Ann movie that featured a candy monster called the Greedy that wanted to literally tear out Ann's heart and eat it. Good thing Ragatha managed to convince him they're not candy
@@Akranejames I thought the exact same thing on my first watch. Thought they were going to have him sing when the strings started to come in as he materialised.
I feel like ragatha herself is just a raggedy ann reference in general. Her interactions with the princess remind me of Raggedy ann and Babette (idk how to spell her name) a little bit. I feel like if we searched enough we'd find so many
6:57 When Kinger said they have candy bugs here, it remembered me about his obsession with a insects collection in the pilot, but then i realize they all are in a virtual world, maybe what kingers is obsessed isnt about insects, but bugs in the program? Like he is this dude so old he gone crazy, but he drops wisdom here and there, and maybe his onsesion with insects is his brain connecting the word bug with the more classical definition, insted of a more virtual one.
@ace0135 It was a reference to a series of video games designed by one of the animators. The whole premise was a game show inside the stomach of a monster.
So in this episode we leaned into the existential dread of NPCs learning that they are not real, and we learned that Caine cannot keep track of who's an NPC and who's a person so he gets rid of all NPCs after he's done using them to avoid getting them mixed up, (and extrapolating upon that, the implication seems to be that he probably _could_ mercy kill people who've abstracted but chooses not to -- seemingly because the idea of deleting a real person horrifies him... But he has absolutely no problems with deleting NPCs, because he does not regard them as "real people" anyway) and yet this episode still somehow managed to end on a somewhat uplifting note at a funeral of all things where Pomni's fear that her "death" would go completely unmourned by the others was alleviated.
you hit something horrifying in your comment. We know that the AIs in Digital Circus can evolve, like Gummigoo, and Caine is AI that is either terrified of murder or hard-coded out of it, which might imply that in future episodes me might get to see Caine snap and go lethal. Plus, it makes for a story, with a big bad that the heroes have to oppose (to survive, in this case)
@@hisupwassup Yeah, I was thinking about that as I wrote it, too: Caine may be in a Batman kinda situation where part of the reason he's so horrified over the possibility of deleting an actual person is because it might lead him into becoming desensitized to it and start deciding that deleting people is okay after all... I don't think the story is actually going to go all the way there, it's just not that kinda show, but just the hypothetical of that threat could be scary enough...
@@hisupwassupGiven that he has complete control of space, presumably their avatars and can find and teleport to them whenever he feels like it wouldn't be much of a conflict.
Makes me wonder if someone could possibly confuse Caine into thinking that they're an NPC in a bid to escape the Circus through thorough self-destruction instead of abstraction.
Jax is the player that steals from the party (the chaos player) Ragatha is the player trying to keep everyone together (the party mom) Zuble is the player that does not care anymore but dragged along (the disinterested player) Gangle is the player with poor stats trying not to die (the survivor) Kinger is the player that has seen too much (the veteran player) Pomni is the new player stuck in a terrible game (the newbie) Caine and Bubble being the DM/Game Master
Tbh, I havent seen anyone mention the fact that the two folks of the Goomigoo went to a town that doesnt exist, with a truck they werent supposed to keep. Unless the story stops after they leave, his friends would have an existence crisis just as them
Because the scenario is that theyre supposed to capture and stop the bandits, but because Gummigoo and Pomni glitched outside of the map, and then came back with two trucks it changed. Gummigoo being shown the extra models and being told what he really is actulley affected him, like a real person. So maybe cain is lying, and the npcs arent actulley fake, and are really people with real emotions? I know the creators said that caine isn't inherently evil, but its been shown that he's been doing this for so long that he's forgotten a lot, maybe more people that he thinks are npcs are just humans that he's made do his bidding? Just a theory though.
I agree, but even worse, something to take note of is this: Why the fudge? like, why did it even need to exist? Ragatha mentioned that Caine was teasing this, meaning he had been working on this for probably a bit. So why did he make the fudge? a character assumablywe would have not run into at all if they hadn't gone over the cliff, of which why would he assume they would? On top of that, the moat filled with chocolate surrounding the entiree castle seemed like thebest place for him to be. Why program an NPC and then place it some place allmost useless? My guess is this: Caine can't fully control the simulations anymore. I could be wrong, but Caine seemed to REALLY want them in the Candy Kingdom as fast as he possibly could. Kind of weird he just stood there and started using a bubble pipe immediatley afterward. I feel what happened was he set up the scene for the Candy Kingdom, and immediatley lost control of it because he can't control AI anymore (as shown by bubble just completely SHATTERING all the rules and speaking completely out of line). So he needed to put them in the Candy Kingdom and get the job done as fast as possible before the entire scene fell apart. THis is further emphasized by gummygoo having an existential crisis, Candy kingdom seemingly believing Caine as some kind of deity, as well as Caine not knowing what an NPC and a human character were in terms of differences. I don't think Candy Kingdom is gone and I have a feeling much of this is going to start to come back to bite them. Raggie promised she wouldn't let the kingdom key fall in the wrong hands; Jax got it, allowing the fudge in. The syrup truck is now going towards a potentially non existent town. Gummygoo is either teleported back, or maybe even just simply non existent too. Unless it's all played for a gag, which..... knowing goose works that's both unlikely and at the same time incredibly probable, all of their choices are going to come back and it's going to come back to hit them and hit them HARD. Goose has had a long running habit of making benign things turn out to be VERY important details that can have immense effects on the story way down the line.
@@tsunertoo9149 That's a good point. What if Cain is slowly losing his mind himself? He's creating new scenarios for the humans, but he's slowly losing how much control he has over the worlds he makes. Like in the pilot, the exit door to the unfinished map just appeared, and Cain apologized later. One other thing is Pomni's role in all of this, she obviously knows a good bit about game programming since she recognizes the significance of the room with extra models, and how to mess with the collision of the truck to get to escape. So maybe she was a person who worked on the game or was a beta tester of sorts for C&A? I don't know for sure, but just thoughts I've had rolling around since this episode.
@@jdrupt6 That's very possible. Cain seemed to kinda struggle with remembering the name of the adventure when he rushed the crew out. To me, implying he's on the edge of his capacity to handle the whole situation the cast are in. And maybe has been like that for ages now.
I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS AND NO WHERE TO PUT THEM SO HERE YA GO. I loved the main theme of the episode being that not only is Pomni afraid of abstraction, but she's afraid that no one would care if she 'died', and that'd mean that she meant nothing to any of these people. BECAUSE in the first episode, not only when Kaufmo abstracted, but also when Zooble was literally torn to pieces by the gloinks, the other characters sort of joked about it and didn't really take it seriously (the only one who did was Gangle, and even Ragatha didn't say anything about Zooble being taken). We know now that's because Zooble wasn't actually in danger, since they don't technically 'die', but since it was day one for Pomni, it came off as if no one actually cared about each other on a deep level. That her nightmare would literally be how they'd feel if she 'died', since no one but Zooble and Kinger said anything about being upset by Kaufmo's abstraction. The funeral showed her that no, actually everyone does care to some degree and would be sad if she abstracted, meaning she'd mean something to these people in the end. BUT BUT BUT, on the same train of thought, the most interesting part of this episode for me was Zooble. Firstly, she clearly hates or resents Caine in some way. She doesn't just hate the adventures, but immediately rejected the adventure once Caine mentioned there were NPC's involved. He tried to be like 'but they're super immersive!' but she wasn't having it. This episode told us that Zooble cares a lot about the members of the circus, and about life/other people in general while Caine doesn't value the NPC's at all, because why would he? Her also waiting for Caine to leave and for everyone to get back for the funeral also showed something intriguing. She doesn't like that Caine is (almost) constantly watching over them. She wasn't just waiting for everyone to attend the funeral, but to hold it specifically when Caine wouldn't be there. I will conclude this with a theory I now have. What if Zooble is actually an NPC? Here's some possible evidence: She does not like Caine. She cares about everyone in a very meaningful way, and goes out of her way for them (in her own way). She refuses to be involved in the adventures PERHAPS because she knows just how meaningless they are. Her design is, by far the most 'inhuman' design, and the strangest. And finally, that Caine suggests that there's actually a chance he could've mixed up the players and NPCs in the past. Though I think that could also just be a fake out, or just another element to add to the psychological horror of the show. My theory could be very wrong. I hope someone enjoyed reading this mess.
I did! Although, I would have appreciated if you had broken it up into a few paragraphs with some line breaks. That *massive* wall of text is both intimidating, and causes a bit of eye strain.
Dang it Airier, now I have to edit the time stamps. This episode certainly reinforced a theory I had from the pilot. Jax's whole deal is likely some sort of Sans situation, where his whole deal is simply a mask to hide how broken he is internally. 4:29 Stolas is carrying over from both different universes and layers of reality. 4:55 New AI, huh? That would explain why they were so life-like. 12:30 Probably has something to do with the fact that Gangle is canonically a weeb. 30:40 THAT! That's exactly what I'm talking about! Acting like a chaos-loving jerk is a defense mechanism!
Jax treats the adventures the same way some folks play video games, doing horrible stuff because it's consequence-free. I personally theorize he torments everyone because they're the only thing in the entire circus whose reactions actually MATTER. Their hatred is an acknowledgment that he exists and is doing something that has some kind of permanent impact.
YOU'RE LITERALLY MY FAVORITE PERSON IN REACTION! like.. I've been waiting for someone to notice the details that Jax actually felt something when they mentioned the funeral
Haven't seen many people realize/mention that Pomni using the boxes to launch the truck calls back to when she falls out of bed and clips with the letter block at the beginning of the episode. I love the game physics jokes in this show.
Gooseworx is definitely showing her love for the Raggedy Ann musical with the scenes involving The Fudge. He’s basically a one-for-one recreation of The Greedy. 😂
@@Airier From what I’ve seen, it’s a total trip like most animated films from the 70’s. It was directed by Richard Williams, the same man who directed the animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, as well as The Thief and the Cobbler. Goose cited it as one of her inspirations for TADC, which you can definitely tell with a few of the other characters (obviously there’s Ragatha’s design, but also Jax’s voice and personality being very similar to Raggedy Ann’s brother, Andy).
@Airier imagin 2D toy story made in the 70'/80's with songs made top teir muppet movies and also randomly the top tier animation team took shooms. It's free domian so nobody has the rights to the movie and it's free on youtube.
9:22 hmm yeahh and the Candy Queen character is also fairly convincing that Ragatha made small talk with her just fine, despite being an AI NPC. Caine made too good on his word that these NPCs are more immersive, and its what made the reveal to Gummigoo realizing his reality being fake makes all the more tragic. 😭
30:37 This is pure theory and based on the idea that Caine has already lost track of an NPC who's among the main cast. But from that little bit if any of the characters are NPCs, my money's on Jax. He is unreasonably cruel to everyone around him like they aren't real to him, a bias that could be because he's an NPC so his mindset could be "well I'm not real to *them* " But also Raggatha is talking about people who have abstracted at the time, and unless we see an NPC abstract (doubtful considering Gummigoo didn't when he discovered the assets), it's another reason for him to feel like no one else would care about him. He's never going to abstract, he's just going to burst into confetti like every other NPC Caine discovers. So who cares? And he somehow has all the keys whenever he needs them, which is very sus. The only issue with this idea to me is if Kinger really has been here the longest, than he should know Jax is an NPC, but he either doesn't or isn't telling anyone. Though given Kinger's mental instability it's likely he doesn't know, or at least it gave Jax an opportunity to slip in with the humans undetected. Like I said this is just speculation, but I'd be very surprised if there's not a least more going on with Jax than meets the eye.
@@Bezaliel13 Any number of reasons, really. Two I can think of off the top of my head is either he's become more jaded as time went on or he could have started out just as jerkish as he is now and we're actually seeing small bits of him soften up that he's still masking
@@Fyne17 I can think of a few ideas, most of them centering around "it's a lie," either on the creator's part or it's what Jax says he is. And if it's not technically a lie, it is a fabrication, similar to Gummigoo having a mother
If that theory is true then that's an extra layer of existential crisis. Imagine believing you're a human trapped in a simulation only to realize you're just a digital clone of the human you thought you were. 🤯
So The teapots are actually a very interesting thing for them to add into here. In modeling software, we have basic assets that we can pull up to fool around with. Normally they are for beginners to play around with or something to start out modeling with. There are simple things like a Cube, a Sphere, planes, cylinders, but I think Blender had a teapot you could pick out of these basic shapes. The reason they did that was because it was the first thing ever made with precise measurements and it was to show how really precise you could make things. I love the great many references that they have right now for video games and the like, like the area with the game model assets being something game designers actually do, have a 3D modeled area where all the characters and items are lined up together to see scale of each and every thing.
I personally love that ending. After the first episode and throughout this episode, Pomni feels that everyone's existence here is completely meaningless. Just surface level fun and games to distract from the crushing dread of their reality. No one seemed to care all that much when Kaufmo abstracted, and her attempt to help someone in an even worse position than her was cruelly shot down. But the funeral proved that life _does_ have some meaning in this place, at least to the people that live here. The people here _do_ care that Kaufmo is gone. They'd care if _she_ was gone. That small acknowledgement helps her feel just a little better about this. At least, that's how I like to read it.
I actually find this episode immensely comforting. Like yeah, obviously there will be problems down the line, but I don't think it will be as doom and nihilism-only as you make it out to be.
@@Airier Well, that was a short animation, with a lot less character development and therefore attachment, also a lot more abstract and absurdist. And the "hope is snatched away" thing did happen in the previous and in this episode! The door being fake, Gummygoo being poofed, those were both moments like that. And I'm sure there will be more similar ones. But that doesn't mean the comfort and company that is offered in response is a twisted cruel joke. It doesn't read like that to me.
I watched episode 2 before episode 1.. I really wasn't ready at all.. I didn't expect Gummigoo to get erased like that, I didn't know that was that kind of show.. even tho the person who sent me this episode told me "did you like the horrible fate of the croc?" I thought realizing he was an npc was it.. I was so happy for him when I saw him get through the portal and to the circus.. that was absolutely heartwrenching..
5:00 my theory is that Zuble dislikes the adventures because she previously tried saving an ai (like Pomni does) and became upset losing it. This would explain why Caine thought she might be cheered up by a new ai and would explain Jax’s behavior in this scene (since he’s a jerk) it also explains why Caine outright acknowledges them loving their npc’s implying a similar thing has happened before
There's a Tom Scott video about the teapots. They're Utah Teapots, which is the first shape to have ever been rendered in 3D. It's even in a museum about computer programming
A lot of people are hoping that Gummygoo eventually returns as a returning NPC, as implied by Ragatha. Though plenty of people at this point have theorized he won’t retain his memory, or will need his to be reminded (though it will probably be difficult to do so).
I'm honestly hopeful, despite everything, that Gummigoo becomes a recurring character. It was clear how much it helped Pomni to have someone to talk to who really _understands_ how she's been feeling -- being able to relate to and empathize with someone else's struggles and worries can be an excellent therapeutic approach, and even just their short span of time together was visibly helpful for both GG and Pomni. Plus... I mean, you don't make _merchandise_ off of a one-off supporting character. Gooseworx isn't done with our heartstrings _yet._
3:24 Just because someone brings up something that may be a sore point between them and someone else, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s something that that person is still upset about. It very well could mean that someone (ragatha in this instance but anyone can fit honestly) is more emotionally intuitive than most others and may want to help ease any confusion or misunderstanding with the other person (in this instance pomni). Now does that go for everyone, no of course not, but it’s better to keep a more open mind in discussions rather having a preconceived idea of what someone else is thinking. Pomni just went through a crazy experience all in one day, I think ragatha is just trying to get back to helping pomni navigate this nightmare.
Maybe. It's entirely possible she was attempting to clear the air. But I could also see this as tipping the audience off to Ragatha nursing a grudge for the story to play with later.
@@Airier yeah very much so. But it just didn’t seem like it was right to only boil it down to “you brought it up, therefore you’re still making a big deal”. People are very complex you can never know. As for the show this could very well be something that can be brought up again in a later episode. Throughout this episode however, ragatha also was showing a ton of care to pomni despite what happened. Still trying over and over again. So we just need to watch and see. I’m highly interested in what happens
I think this is what the blue teapots were a reference to. I did a 10 second google search so correct me if I happen to be wrong. Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others. And example of this would be Russell used his analogy for religion. He wrote that if he were to say without proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him because his claim could not be proven wrong.
Also I think when Caine says he'd lose track of whose an npc and whose a human is lot darker when you remember Caine is an A.I and not a person. Perhaps he literally couldn't tell the difference after a long enough time, especially when the ai's he makes are already so life-like.
Here’s a funny reference 11:27. From the popular game Pizza Tower there’s a taunt you can do that has a lot of variation. The sound that played in pizza tower is nearly identical to these taunt sounds
Augustus Gloop is the kid in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory who drowns in the Chocolate River after falling in and plugging the chocolate extraction pipe
I think the saddest part about Gummigoo's death isn't that he's gone- but that he might come back. Pomni would likely try to talk with him, But he won't remember anything. It'd be like if nothing ever happened.
The teapot is actually aan interesting computer in-joke in that it's a relatively 'easy' complex shape to test rendering on becauseit has curves and casts shadows onto itself. Also a potential reference toRussel's Teapot. > If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say > > That, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. Given the digital nature of the place as well as the nihilistic absurdism at play? I choose to believe both are at play.
To veer away the dread and despair, I'd recommend you to check out the animated series known as "Monkey Wrench" by Joshua Palmer. It's a show set in space following mercenaries aboard the "Monkey Wrench". It's wonderfully animated, the cast is very fun and the music is SO good. It's currently has a total of 3 episodes with the fourth getting its storyboards done with. I guarantee you a wonderful time.
I dunno, the last couple of episodes definitely hit me in the feels in ways I wasn't expecting, so it's maybe not the best follow-up to this emotional rollercoaster...though I still recommend it nonetheless.
Since you’re doing indie animations (big like this or smaller) I’d recommend Monkey Wrench. It’s about a space bounty hunter duo in the far flung future. It has amazing world-building and is absolutely hilarious. There are 3 episodes so far with a 4th being worked on.
17:49 well let me tell you... "Augustus gloop. Augustus gloop. A selfish greedy Nincompoop"🎵 Or if you're a fan of the Classic "What do you get when you Guzzle down sweets? Eating as much as an Elephant Eats..."🎵
17:48 Augustus Gloop was a kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who fell into the chocolate river and got sucked up into a pipe that goes to the fudge room. In some versions it's implied that he becomes made of chocolate.
30:54 I think people in the circus cope differently when one of them becomes abstracted / essentially being dead. Ragatha and the others clearly are still hurtful of these events, and maybe at one point Jax was affected by them too. But eventually maybe Jax gave up giving a crap of presumably these things happening very often and he became numb to it. For a brief moment he gave a tiny ounce for Kaufmo and that was his quota. 😕
25:16 the teapots are a joke in the 3D community, it's like one of the first 3D models, and it's used as a joke, it was called as something but i can't remember it's like from 1970? Or around those years
I dunno about the warning about watching this if you are struggling with depression stuff. When I was really depressed, suicidally depressed, I watched people play Doki Doki Literature Club and that actually helped me and may have saved me. Getting to see characters put into words the feelings I had, go through the pain I had… it contextualized it for me and became an outlet for those feelings. Whenever I’m really depressed or feel worthless or powerless or alone… I’ll watch or rewatch some existential horror story like Doki Doki or this. Seeing Pomni go through her own issues and deal with her own depression and existential horror… has been really therapeutic for me. Seeing someone else suffer through what you do… can really be a healing experience. Obviously not everyone will get a positive outcome doing it, but I’d say give it a shot to see if it does help.
Not gonna lie, after Gummigoo... it may be a few weeks before I look at a bag of Gummi snakes or bears or whatever. Maybe a months before I eat any, too.
The area GummiGoi landed was an out of bounds model area. Devs usually keep a set of models either under the map or in a secret room so the game has a reference for what to use. Its like how in Skyrim, the corpse models dont get unloaded, they just get sent to a hidden room. Here though, its more or less having a spare replacement should an NPC break or get removed from the story too early. They're basicslly failsafe replacements
Im calling it now, Jax is going to be the Final Villain. Always keeping everyone and everything at Arms length, no guard down and the brutal way he treats NPC's. Kinda reminds me of those Kids who become..... school *youKnowWhat* later on.
@@Airier That's a valid observation. I've just known too many sociopaths and are related to a few. Plus the way Goose has spoken i nthe past about Jax has raised.... ALL of the red flags with me.
In regard to the Cain maybe forgetting someone being an NPC or not thing, I'm betting that Zooble is the NPC (if the theory ends up being true). She's the only one that so far avoids going on adventures, and also she's the least humanoid looking "human" out of the entire group. Also, that little scene where we see Jax briefly sad might not necessarily be about Kaufmo, but might mean that he lost a friend in that place.
What Pomni said? I think it was "trowing stuff to the wall" or something, I guess that means doing something but not knowhing how to do or what will happen and doing it anyway, like, better than doing nothing at all
They all human that trap in this virtual reality simulation, they just don't remember their past life and who they are but they remember some of it as well.
the possibility that an NPC is among them is not 0, but it's debatable that this thing already happened. Ragatha was questioning if it was ok for Gummigoo to enter the circus, even tho she knows he is an NPC. So either that already happened and she's not aware of it, or that was the first time.
Any of the main cast being an AI is very, very unlikely (to say the least), not only do all of them have a known age, but there also had never been AI this immersive. (New AI 57x more immersive).
I mean a life of LARPing in the Digital Circus could be pretty cool. No need to get a job or money, no need to pay taxes, no need to socialize with the scary judgmental people outside while still having interactions with real people (the few other humans)... You can just spend time on your hobbies and visit crazy places and discover cool stuff that would be impossible in the boring real world. Your wildest fantasies can become true in this place.
It gets _risky,_ though, when you start losing track of what's _real_ and what's _fantasy_ -- we've already seen what happens when you _completely_ lose your grip on who you are, and spending all your time going on wacky LARPing adventures isn't likely to help _prevent_ that.
@@Nitrinoxus As far as we're aware, the characters abstract when they get crazy trying to find an exit that doesn't exist. And I know all of this isn't real, that wouldn't change. That's what makes it so awesome in my eyes. I could do whatever I want without limits since it's not real and doesn't matter.
@Oceane1803 As Ragatha explained it, chasing after an unattainable goal is just _one_ of the ways to steadily lose your mind at the Circus -- even if you accept that there's no way to leave, trying to wrangle your own sanity day after day is just as much of a losing battle, and Caine's random role-playing prompts aren't universally effective. That's why everyone's developed their own coping strategies, like Jax's abrasiveness and pranks, Gangle's emotional rigidity, Zooble's detachment or Ragatha's 'team mom' helpfulness: they're all trying to stave off insanity by focusing on maintaining what they consider the central pillar of their identities, and controlling what they _can_ in a world that _defies_ control.
@@chronodis I wouldn't be here for 500 years. This is still a show, and Pomni will definitly find the exit at the end of it. I doubt it will take nearly that long.
The truck that they were driving aka gangle is a cake roll basically a cake rolled up has a whipped filling inside and sometimes it has jam or fruit ( ok I’m getting hungry 🤤 for that)
There is actually a theory that Cain did forget who was a NPC and who wasn't and there is still an NPC amongst the circus. Who is the NPC? None other than Jax. The reasoning is that none of the other Circus members needs to eat, they only do it to still feel human/normal. But Jax said in the pilot episode that he was hungry. His personality is also way different compared to the rest of the members. Also fun fact: the poses that the one crocodile does when he holds onto the rope, is actually the taunt poses from the video game Pizza Tower.
As a captain disillusion fan, i have to say i am pretty sure the effect during pomni's dream is not a CRT TV effect, but rather a rolling shutter effect, the same effect that makes fans look like they are made of weird floating bananas
35:07 nah im depressed af but I find this kinda comforting knowing that could've been worse/ relatability/ this is (finally) getting represented in the main stream media (not for kids though xDDD)
17:48 this is a reference to the 2005 film “Charlie and the chocolate factory” where the fat kid gets sucked up the chocolate pipe and the oompaloompas start singing “ugustis, gloop, ugustis, gloop” This also hints at that the time period is no lesser than 2005 since Jax would’ve had to watched that movie in the first place.
i had the same idea, only it would be really easy for caine to check who was npc or not, BUT i think in the past he did let npcs and players mix and there were some points where he mistaken humans for npcs, so he got rid of npcs and now just doesn't let them in, probable even checking to make sure no one is an npc since they wouldn't show up in that map spot
I actually find it interesting how in Pomni's vision only Ragatha, Gangle and Zooble catch her. Could've been a simple choice in animation or delibatate symbolism.
If you look closely, Kinger's hand is there too, but because it floats and doesn't have an arm attached to it, it's very easy to miss. And, there's no way it wasn't deliberate. Dreams are symbolic by nature, so bookending the episode with flashes of said dream being changed is a clear giveaway in this case.
The moment I saw Pomni having her arms stretched out with the trucks, I immediately thought of Ice Age 2 because of Scratt. Watch the movie if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Theory time... What if the Digital Circus's whole "Trapped in the Game" aspect was resolved ages ago and now our Players/Humans are A.I recreations that Cain made to keep himself company? Or what if everyone's an A.I clone of people who Abstracted ages back? Or what if Cain is a Player/Dev/Beta Player to The Digital Circus, and everyone else are A.I added in to keep HIM sane?
Look, at least Gummigoo wasn't completely deleted from existence, Caine just turned him into a marketable plushie.
And a keychain
@@Denkuand a sticker
Dam Caine was busy making him into all of these
Say what you want about Caine but he sure is a businessman
Petah, please don't turn me into marketable plushies...
P E T A H
Finding out that you’re just an NPC in a world that’s not real and your existence can be erased with just a snap of a finger. They captured the existential dread GummiGoo felt perfectly.
Yup. And now I'm wondering if something similar will happen to Pomni (but only after re-encountering a stripped down Gummy Gu in a different scenario).
psst we all live in a simulation
@@Airier do you think they're going to discuss optimistic nihilism ?
@@Airierwell, why would it happen when she and the main cast know they are in a simulation
Reminds me of real life
I think the more terrifying implication is that he deleated a person thinking they were an npc
I think it's more of an implication that it *could* happen, personally.
@@gradient5319 he certaintly looked like he already did that.
@@Valerion203 Yeah...that's the look of a being who messed up heavily in the past, that is PTSD in his eyes, or whatever can count as PTSD to an AI like Cain
Something just occurred to me: The reason Jax was being so pissy, and so dead set on choosing violence, and so disappointed when that option was taken away from him, is because he was trying to use that violence as a catharsis factor and a way to vent his own sorrows at Kaufmo's death. This whole episode is basically him going through the "anger" stage of grief... In which case his carefree attitude in regards to Kaufmo abstracting in the pilot could have been him going through "denial"...
Does that mean the next episode he’ll be going through the ‘bargaining’ stage
I don't think he actually cares about Kaufmo. I think it bothers him that he probably wouldn't get a funeral when he's gone.
@@steveconvertibles3352 I guess we'll see? (Though, considering the mindspace he seems to be in, I kinda get the feeling that he tends to get stuck on "anger".)
I think it’s not so much grief at Kaufmo’s death, rather at the futility of the situation. I believe he is using the catharsis to distract from how hopeless and hellish their existence has become. Ragatha seems to be toxically positive, and Zooble is apathetic. These are all coping mechanisms and I theorize this is what the series will be unpacking.
@Soy_boi Could be six of one, a half-dozen the other. Jax copes with the futile hopelessness of his existence by injecting little sparks of chaos into the Circus through his pranks on the other residents, but whenever someone abstracts, it's a reminder of how ineffectual and maladaptive his coping strategy actually _is,_ and he needs to find something _more_ to keep his mind off his own looming despair.
The teapots are a reference to the utah teapot, one of the first 3d models made using bezier curves instead of using precise measurements. It's basically an in joke between 3d modellers
Huh I forgot the teapot had a name. Could also reference Russel's Teapot argument. Either way it's a fun visual gag that has layered meaning.
Even in 3D lessons at university/college (if you went into game design or animation) it is one of the very first models you make that is not symmetrical or using mirrored shaping. Almost every 3D modeller has had to make one at one point
@@singletona082 yeah it was made at University of Utah, hence the name.
The teapot is a default shape in 3dS Max as well; blender replaced it with the Monkey. Useful for testing textures and rendering.
whats weird is that I did not know this but I didn't even question the teapots. I was just like "haha teapods........"
"Pomni is a jester, a specific type of clown known for pointing out things." - the Fridge page on tvtropes
Cain doesn’t have a god complex he is a god with anxiety
Probably the best description of Caine I’ve heard yet.
That's a pretty good description of him. He can control everything except for human minds so, quite the god like entity in the circus
@@followeroftheprince couldn't he then try to tweak someone's mind to find if they are an NPC? He can just tweak them back then, can't he?
@@hitecfox605 Seems so. Perhaps once NPCs reach a certain point he can't? He suggested he can mix up humans and NPCs so somehow there's no easily noted way for him to tell the difference
One detail i kinda like is how in the nightmare, it was Caine, Ragatha and Jax who were looking down on her
Caine due to being the showrunner she blames for all of this
Ragatha who she thinks hates her for what happened yesterday
and Jax because....Jax
but in the nightmare callback near the end of the episode, the ones who hold onto her from falling are Ragatha, Zooble, Gangle and Kinger, showing she realized Ragatha held no hard feelings and that they care for one another
Jax and Caine are completely absent though, for...obvious reasons
Which I think might be an incorrect impression in her part. Jax would probably be one of the people reaching for her.
He was oddly supportive this episode. When they got to the trucks, he talked about wanting to jump across and start blasting. But then he immediately gave up that role to Pomni when she was having a hard time.
It's like he's the biggest jerk possible to cover up when he's being nice.
@Airier I think you've got a pretty good read on Jax's personality. His abrasive attitude feels like a facade, a persona he's developed to mask his fear and insecurity from everyone -- making trouble for his fellow performers is one of the only ways he can prove to himself that he's still got agency within the Circus. 'I _prank,_ therefore I _am,'_ I guess you could say.
@@Airier i mean yeah you're mostly correct
however this vision is completely on her perspective, and she sees him just as a Jerk who makes everyone else miserable for his own entertainment
@@Airier Yeah, ignoring the whole "bullying Gangle into trying to ram the truck into the ravine while Pomni was on top" thing.
@@Nitrinoxus It could also be that the effect he has on the others is the only effect that can't be reset or undone by Caine.
19:30 Augustus Gloop, the kid that falls into the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
... Ya know, I'd like to say it's been a while since I saw Willy Wonka, but I can't even claim that. My wife just brought up a review of the original movie so I just got that refresher recently. I have no excuse. 😅
"Did he sound smarter when he couldn't see?"
I mean...no?
i see it as just Kinger having a moment of clarity in his madness
Funnily enough, the dude is the most well adjusted "participant" in the circus right now despite the fact he's literally lost his mind, because he's lost it to the extent that he cannot abstract, as that seems to happen when you fully dissociate with your mind, something he can't do, everything is real to him in a way, even what is just in his head, he's so insane that he doesnt even question anything in the slightest
though, just like anyone, he has moments of clarity where he returns to his old self, im sure we will get more of those
the dude HAS seen the entire circus troupe around him get abstracted multiple times, considering even Caine has lost count of how long he's been here (or if he does know, he's not told anyone weirdly enough)
Kind of reminds me of Alzheimer's
There's a problem though. Caine said he may not be able to tell NPCs and Humans. Kinger thus far is the only character we seem to know has been around potentially as long as Caine, the world doesn't seem to really bother him, he knows too much about the system, and seems to be almost unaffected with anything going on around him.
It's possible, horrifying but possible that like bubble and caine, he may not be a player and is in fact an NPC who has lived for such a long time he's basically ran out of RAM space to contain any immediate information around him anymore.
@@tsunertoo9149 I don't think he can be an NPC, or at the very least can abstract, since there's a door in the Pilot that had a Queen chess piece with an X over the picture that was similar to Kinger. The X'd out image shows that the Queen piece abstracted/died and since Kinger is still there, it could be a simple explanation as to why he is crazy, he lost the queen.
One theory I've been seeing is that while all these characters have been there for vastly different amounts of time 'in game', it's entirely possible that The Amazing Digital Circus is running at an accelerated clock speed. It's possible that all the characters were uploaded within a single 'work-day'.
Kinger (and Queenie) were uploaded at the start of the day, others were added sporadically over the hours IRL but in game, months and years. Jax is supposedly the youngest, in his late teens, and may be an unpaid intern, summer student, or boss's brat who wanted to try out the headset. Pomni tried it on right before the office closed for the day... and they've got the whole night ahead of them.
I’d say Zooble is probably the second most stable based on this assessment. They don’t question things, just refuse to engage.
Fun fact, the whole scene with the Fudge is a reference to an old Raggedy Ann movie that featured a candy monster called the Greedy that wanted to literally tear out Ann's heart and eat it. Good thing Ragatha managed to convince him they're not candy
The Fudge is also very much the "Great Mighty Poo" when it comes to design..
I expected it to start singing opera at some point honestly.
Master of unlocking is a resident evil refrence too!
yeah and I yelled that it was Raggedy Ann Reference when I saw it even saberspark and his friend say that it would be too
@@Akranejames I thought the exact same thing on my first watch. Thought they were going to have him sing when the strings started to come in as he materialised.
I feel like ragatha herself is just a raggedy ann reference in general. Her interactions with the princess remind me of Raggedy ann and Babette (idk how to spell her name) a little bit. I feel like if we searched enough we'd find so many
6:57 When Kinger said they have candy bugs here, it remembered me about his obsession with a insects collection in the pilot, but then i realize they all are in a virtual world, maybe what kingers is obsessed isnt about insects, but bugs in the program? Like he is this dude so old he gone crazy, but he drops wisdom here and there, and maybe his onsesion with insects is his brain connecting the word bug with the more classical definition, insted of a more virtual one.
Well one of the theories is he made the world/interface. So, makes sense.
we still need to find out what he meant by "experiencing a game show", assuming that wasn't a throwaway line.
@ace0135 It was a reference to a series of video games designed by one of the animators. The whole premise was a game show inside the stomach of a monster.
@@albertfronton3634not just any animator, but Gooseworks herself, who is *the showrunner* of TADC
@@hisupwassup Ohh, thanks for the correction, I didn't know.
So in this episode we leaned into the existential dread of NPCs learning that they are not real, and we learned that Caine cannot keep track of who's an NPC and who's a person so he gets rid of all NPCs after he's done using them to avoid getting them mixed up, (and extrapolating upon that, the implication seems to be that he probably _could_ mercy kill people who've abstracted but chooses not to -- seemingly because the idea of deleting a real person horrifies him... But he has absolutely no problems with deleting NPCs, because he does not regard them as "real people" anyway) and yet this episode still somehow managed to end on a somewhat uplifting note at a funeral of all things where Pomni's fear that her "death" would go completely unmourned by the others was alleviated.
you hit something horrifying in your comment. We know that the AIs in Digital Circus can evolve, like Gummigoo, and Caine is AI that is either terrified of murder or hard-coded out of it, which might imply that in future episodes me might get to see Caine snap and go lethal. Plus, it makes for a story, with a big bad that the heroes have to oppose (to survive, in this case)
@@hisupwassup Yeah, I was thinking about that as I wrote it, too: Caine may be in a Batman kinda situation where part of the reason he's so horrified over the possibility of deleting an actual person is because it might lead him into becoming desensitized to it and start deciding that deleting people is okay after all... I don't think the story is actually going to go all the way there, it's just not that kinda show, but just the hypothetical of that threat could be scary enough...
@@hisupwassupGiven that he has complete control of space, presumably their avatars and can find and teleport to them whenever he feels like it wouldn't be much of a conflict.
Makes me wonder if someone could possibly confuse Caine into thinking that they're an NPC in a bid to escape the Circus through thorough self-destruction instead of abstraction.
The Canadian heard about another Grand Theft of Mapple Syrup, the military is getting deploy with the Geneva suggestions list.
It was the mafia that was stolen from
Canada: "We don't break the rules, but we're the reason there are so many rules"
Jax will be that one player in a ttrpg that will always play as a murder hobo.
Yeah he would
Jax is the player that steals from the party (the chaos player)
Ragatha is the player trying to keep everyone together (the party mom)
Zuble is the player that does not care anymore but dragged along (the disinterested player)
Gangle is the player with poor stats trying not to die (the survivor)
Kinger is the player that has seen too much (the veteran player)
Pomni is the new player stuck in a terrible game (the newbie)
Caine and Bubble being the DM/Game Master
go into undertale just to play the genocide route.
twice.
Tbh, I havent seen anyone mention the fact that the two folks of the Goomigoo went to a town that doesnt exist, with a truck they werent supposed to keep.
Unless the story stops after they leave, his friends would have an existence crisis just as them
Oh shit, I didnt even think about that
Because the scenario is that theyre supposed to capture and stop the bandits, but because Gummigoo and Pomni glitched outside of the map, and then came back with two trucks it changed. Gummigoo being shown the extra models and being told what he really is actulley affected him, like a real person. So maybe cain is lying, and the npcs arent actulley fake, and are really people with real emotions? I know the creators said that caine isn't inherently evil, but its been shown that he's been doing this for so long that he's forgotten a lot, maybe more people that he thinks are npcs are just humans that he's made do his bidding? Just a theory though.
I agree, but even worse, something to take note of is this: Why the fudge? like, why did it even need to exist? Ragatha mentioned that Caine was teasing this, meaning he had been working on this for probably a bit. So why did he make the fudge? a character assumablywe would have not run into at all if they hadn't gone over the cliff, of which why would he assume they would? On top of that, the moat filled with chocolate surrounding the entiree castle seemed like thebest place for him to be. Why program an NPC and then place it some place allmost useless?
My guess is this: Caine can't fully control the simulations anymore. I could be wrong, but Caine seemed to REALLY want them in the Candy Kingdom as fast as he possibly could. Kind of weird he just stood there and started using a bubble pipe immediatley afterward. I feel what happened was he set up the scene for the Candy Kingdom, and immediatley lost control of it because he can't control AI anymore (as shown by bubble just completely SHATTERING all the rules and speaking completely out of line). So he needed to put them in the Candy Kingdom and get the job done as fast as possible before the entire scene fell apart. THis is further emphasized by gummygoo having an existential crisis, Candy kingdom seemingly believing Caine as some kind of deity, as well as Caine not knowing what an NPC and a human character were in terms of differences. I don't think Candy Kingdom is gone and I have a feeling much of this is going to start to come back to bite them. Raggie promised she wouldn't let the kingdom key fall in the wrong hands; Jax got it, allowing the fudge in. The syrup truck is now going towards a potentially non existent town. Gummygoo is either teleported back, or maybe even just simply non existent too. Unless it's all played for a gag, which..... knowing goose works that's both unlikely and at the same time incredibly probable, all of their choices are going to come back and it's going to come back to hit them and hit them HARD. Goose has had a long running habit of making benign things turn out to be VERY important details that can have immense effects on the story way down the line.
@@tsunertoo9149 That's a good point. What if Cain is slowly losing his mind himself? He's creating new scenarios for the humans, but he's slowly losing how much control he has over the worlds he makes. Like in the pilot, the exit door to the unfinished map just appeared, and Cain apologized later. One other thing is Pomni's role in all of this, she obviously knows a good bit about game programming since she recognizes the significance of the room with extra models, and how to mess with the collision of the truck to get to escape. So maybe she was a person who worked on the game or was a beta tester of sorts for C&A? I don't know for sure, but just thoughts I've had rolling around since this episode.
@@jdrupt6
That's very possible.
Cain seemed to kinda struggle with remembering the name of the adventure when he rushed the crew out.
To me, implying he's on the edge of his capacity to handle the whole situation the cast are in. And maybe has been like that for ages now.
I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS AND NO WHERE TO PUT THEM SO HERE YA GO.
I loved the main theme of the episode being that not only is Pomni afraid of abstraction, but she's afraid that no one would care if she 'died', and that'd mean that she meant nothing to any of these people. BECAUSE in the first episode, not only when Kaufmo abstracted, but also when Zooble was literally torn to pieces by the gloinks, the other characters sort of joked about it and didn't really take it seriously (the only one who did was Gangle, and even Ragatha didn't say anything about Zooble being taken). We know now that's because Zooble wasn't actually in danger, since they don't technically 'die', but since it was day one for Pomni, it came off as if no one actually cared about each other on a deep level. That her nightmare would literally be how they'd feel if she 'died', since no one but Zooble and Kinger said anything about being upset by Kaufmo's abstraction. The funeral showed her that no, actually everyone does care to some degree and would be sad if she abstracted, meaning she'd mean something to these people in the end. BUT BUT BUT, on the same train of thought, the most interesting part of this episode for me was Zooble. Firstly, she clearly hates or resents Caine in some way. She doesn't just hate the adventures, but immediately rejected the adventure once Caine mentioned there were NPC's involved. He tried to be like 'but they're super immersive!' but she wasn't having it. This episode told us that Zooble cares a lot about the members of the circus, and about life/other people in general while Caine doesn't value the NPC's at all, because why would he? Her also waiting for Caine to leave and for everyone to get back for the funeral also showed something intriguing. She doesn't like that Caine is (almost) constantly watching over them. She wasn't just waiting for everyone to attend the funeral, but to hold it specifically when Caine wouldn't be there.
I will conclude this with a theory I now have. What if Zooble is actually an NPC? Here's some possible evidence: She does not like Caine. She cares about everyone in a very meaningful way, and goes out of her way for them (in her own way). She refuses to be involved in the adventures PERHAPS because she knows just how meaningless they are. Her design is, by far the most 'inhuman' design, and the strangest. And finally, that Caine suggests that there's actually a chance he could've mixed up the players and NPCs in the past. Though I think that could also just be a fake out, or just another element to add to the psychological horror of the show. My theory could be very wrong. I hope someone enjoyed reading this mess.
I did! Although, I would have appreciated if you had broken it up into a few paragraphs with some line breaks. That *massive* wall of text is both intimidating, and causes a bit of eye strain.
And that's also why they (Zooble) the only person that didn't know their real gender
10:50 because all his non-doll NPCs are also full AIs and require the proper motivation, as you will see
Dang it Airier, now I have to edit the time stamps.
This episode certainly reinforced a theory I had from the pilot. Jax's whole deal is likely some sort of Sans situation, where his whole deal is simply a mask to hide how broken he is internally.
4:29 Stolas is carrying over from both different universes and layers of reality.
4:55 New AI, huh? That would explain why they were so life-like.
12:30 Probably has something to do with the fact that Gangle is canonically a weeb.
30:40 THAT! That's exactly what I'm talking about! Acting like a chaos-loving jerk is a defense mechanism!
My theory is that even though kinger is losing it on the outside, Jax might be next to abstract because he's completely breaking inside
No, he's definitely a chaos loving jerk
Jax treats the adventures the same way some folks play video games, doing horrible stuff because it's consequence-free.
I personally theorize he torments everyone because they're the only thing in the entire circus whose reactions actually MATTER. Their hatred is an acknowledgment that he exists and is doing something that has some kind of permanent impact.
YOU'RE LITERALLY MY FAVORITE PERSON IN REACTION! like.. I've been waiting for someone to notice the details that Jax actually felt something when they mentioned the funeral
It's either way that he actually felt grief by kaufmo's death or that he had something to do with it and feels guilty 👀
@@wendyardaya6304 true
Haven't seen many people realize/mention that Pomni using the boxes to launch the truck calls back to when she falls out of bed and clips with the letter block at the beginning of the episode. I love the game physics jokes in this show.
Gooseworx is definitely showing her love for the Raggedy Ann musical with the scenes involving The Fudge. He’s basically a one-for-one recreation of The Greedy. 😂
This is actually the first time I've heard there's a Raggedy Ann musical. What's it like?
@@Airier From what I’ve seen, it’s a total trip like most animated films from the 70’s. It was directed by Richard Williams, the same man who directed the animation for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, as well as The Thief and the Cobbler. Goose cited it as one of her inspirations for TADC, which you can definitely tell with a few of the other characters (obviously there’s Ragatha’s design, but also Jax’s voice and personality being very similar to Raggedy Ann’s brother, Andy).
@Airier imagin 2D toy story made in the 70'/80's with songs made top teir muppet movies and also randomly the top tier animation team took shooms. It's free domian so nobody has the rights to the movie and it's free on youtube.
@@Airier Brainfuck. Absolute Pure Brainfuck.
@@Airier You can probably find the full movie here on TH-cam...or short of that Nostalgia Critic did a video about it awhile ago.
GummiGoo's death was this show's equivalent to Sir Pentious getting blasted by Adam. the same exact feeling hit me
At least Sir Pentious went to Heaven. Far as we know GummiGoo (at least as we know him from this episode) is gone forever.
@@cartooncritique6625 yeah rip. I really grew to love Gummigoo over the course of the episode. Such a shame
Rule #1 of any form of horror: Don't get attached.
10:57 Also funny that they're clearly Australian, with the whole "founded as a penal colony" thing.
The existential crisis of my poor candy gator. Caine needs to up his programming to avoid these situations and make exceptions going down the line.
I would argue that Cane needs to down his programing.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next time we see a copy of Gummigoo, his AI will have been modified to avoid comprehending what he is.
9:22 hmm yeahh and the Candy Queen character is also fairly convincing that Ragatha made small talk with her just fine, despite being an AI NPC. Caine made too good on his word that these NPCs are more immersive, and its what made the reveal to Gummigoo realizing his reality being fake makes all the more tragic. 😭
30:37 This is pure theory and based on the idea that Caine has already lost track of an NPC who's among the main cast. But from that little bit if any of the characters are NPCs, my money's on Jax. He is unreasonably cruel to everyone around him like they aren't real to him, a bias that could be because he's an NPC so his mindset could be "well I'm not real to *them* " But also Raggatha is talking about people who have abstracted at the time, and unless we see an NPC abstract (doubtful considering Gummigoo didn't when he discovered the assets), it's another reason for him to feel like no one else would care about him. He's never going to abstract, he's just going to burst into confetti like every other NPC Caine discovers. So who cares? And he somehow has all the keys whenever he needs them, which is very sus.
The only issue with this idea to me is if Kinger really has been here the longest, than he should know Jax is an NPC, but he either doesn't or isn't telling anyone. Though given Kinger's mental instability it's likely he doesn't know, or at least it gave Jax an opportunity to slip in with the humans undetected. Like I said this is just speculation, but I'd be very surprised if there's not a least more going on with Jax than meets the eye.
I think it would be weird if the creator had given us the age of the main cast when any of them are just NPC's. How'd that work?
But would he be so OK with killing NPCs then?
@@Bezaliel13 Any number of reasons, really. Two I can think of off the top of my head is either he's become more jaded as time went on or he could have started out just as jerkish as he is now and we're actually seeing small bits of him soften up that he's still masking
@@Fyne17 I can think of a few ideas, most of them centering around "it's a lie," either on the creator's part or it's what Jax says he is. And if it's not technically a lie, it is a fabrication, similar to Gummigoo having a mother
@@GentleIceZ
But would it have story potential comparable to him learning the NPCs can feel?
Ah yes don’t you love it when your villain has an existential crisis about them not being real
There's a theory that Caine can't distinguish between NPCs and humans because the humans are uploaded digital clones.
If that theory is true then that's an extra layer of existential crisis. Imagine believing you're a human trapped in a simulation only to realize you're just a digital clone of the human you thought you were. 🤯
@@cartooncritique6625 That's basically just the plot of SOMA.
30:40 - 30:58 Finally someone talked about Jax there! You're the first youtuber I saw who mentioned that which I think is such a interesting detail
So The teapots are actually a very interesting thing for them to add into here. In modeling software, we have basic assets that we can pull up to fool around with. Normally they are for beginners to play around with or something to start out modeling with. There are simple things like a Cube, a Sphere, planes, cylinders, but I think Blender had a teapot you could pick out of these basic shapes. The reason they did that was because it was the first thing ever made with precise measurements and it was to show how really precise you could make things. I love the great many references that they have right now for video games and the like, like the area with the game model assets being something game designers actually do, have a 3D modeled area where all the characters and items are lined up together to see scale of each and every thing.
25:15 the teapots are an inside joke for computer graphics called the "Utah teapot"
I personally love that ending.
After the first episode and throughout this episode, Pomni feels that everyone's existence here is completely meaningless. Just surface level fun and games to distract from the crushing dread of their reality. No one seemed to care all that much when Kaufmo abstracted, and her attempt to help someone in an even worse position than her was cruelly shot down.
But the funeral proved that life _does_ have some meaning in this place, at least to the people that live here. The people here _do_ care that Kaufmo is gone. They'd care if _she_ was gone.
That small acknowledgement helps her feel just a little better about this.
At least, that's how I like to read it.
I actually find this episode immensely comforting. Like yeah, obviously there will be problems down the line, but I don't think it will be as doom and nihilism-only as you make it out to be.
I'm mostly comparing it to how his other vid, Runmo, went. Soon as their was any hope, everything went down the drain
@@Airier Well, that was a short animation, with a lot less character development and therefore attachment, also a lot more abstract and absurdist. And the "hope is snatched away" thing did happen in the previous and in this episode! The door being fake, Gummygoo being poofed, those were both moments like that. And I'm sure there will be more similar ones. But that doesn't mean the comfort and company that is offered in response is a twisted cruel joke. It doesn't read like that to me.
I watched episode 2 before episode 1..
I really wasn't ready at all..
I didn't expect Gummigoo to get erased like that, I didn't know that was that kind of show..
even tho the person who sent me this episode told me "did you like the horrible fate of the croc?" I thought realizing he was an npc was it..
I was so happy for him when I saw him get through the portal and to the circus..
that was absolutely heartwrenching..
5:00 my theory is that Zuble dislikes the adventures because she previously tried saving an ai (like Pomni does) and became upset losing it.
This would explain why Caine thought she might be cheered up by a new ai and would explain Jax’s behavior in this scene (since he’s a jerk) it also explains why Caine outright acknowledges them loving their npc’s implying a similar thing has happened before
Nice theory
Gooseworx is a she, btw (and also the person who voices Bubble)
Didn't know that. Thanks for letting me know.
There's a Tom Scott video about the teapots. They're Utah Teapots, which is the first shape to have ever been rendered in 3D. It's even in a museum about computer programming
Can we take a moment to appreciate the funeral scene?
The fact they have the main theme but a different tempo is really good!
A lot of people are hoping that Gummygoo eventually returns as a returning NPC, as implied by Ragatha. Though plenty of people at this point have theorized he won’t retain his memory, or will need his to be reminded (though it will probably be difficult to do so).
12:50 its a pizza tower taunt reference
I love your reactions because you pause and replay stuff, most reactors dont and miss stuff
I'm honestly hopeful, despite everything, that Gummigoo becomes a recurring character. It was clear how much it helped Pomni to have someone to talk to who really _understands_ how she's been feeling -- being able to relate to and empathize with someone else's struggles and worries can be an excellent therapeutic approach, and even just their short span of time together was visibly helpful for both GG and Pomni.
Plus... I mean, you don't make _merchandise_ off of a one-off supporting character. Gooseworx isn't done with our heartstrings _yet._
3:24 Just because someone brings up something that may be a sore point between them and someone else, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s something that that person is still upset about. It very well could mean that someone (ragatha in this instance but anyone can fit honestly) is more emotionally intuitive than most others and may want to help ease any confusion or misunderstanding with the other person (in this instance pomni). Now does that go for everyone, no of course not, but it’s better to keep a more open mind in discussions rather having a preconceived idea of what someone else is thinking. Pomni just went through a crazy experience all in one day, I think ragatha is just trying to get back to helping pomni navigate this nightmare.
Maybe.
It's entirely possible she was attempting to clear the air. But I could also see this as tipping the audience off to Ragatha nursing a grudge for the story to play with later.
@@Airier yeah very much so. But it just didn’t seem like it was right to only boil it down to “you brought it up, therefore you’re still making a big deal”. People are very complex you can never know. As for the show this could very well be something that can be brought up again in a later episode. Throughout this episode however, ragatha also was showing a ton of care to pomni despite what happened. Still trying over and over again. So we just need to watch and see. I’m highly interested in what happens
jax got a bit of character development in the end there
It's always been a persona to cope, he turned himself into the equivalent of a DND murder hobo
I like and hate em so much
I think this is what the blue teapots were a reference to. I did a 10 second google search so correct me if I happen to be wrong.
Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others.
And example of this would be
Russell used his analogy for religion. He wrote that if he were to say without proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him because his claim could not be proven wrong.
Also I think when Caine says he'd lose track of whose an npc and whose a human is lot darker when you remember Caine is an A.I and not a person. Perhaps he literally couldn't tell the difference after a long enough time, especially when the ai's he makes are already so life-like.
Here’s a funny reference 11:27. From the popular game Pizza Tower there’s a taunt you can do that has a lot of variation. The sound that played in pizza tower is nearly identical to these taunt sounds
and the flash too
Augustus Gloop is the kid in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory who drowns in the Chocolate River after falling in and plugging the chocolate extraction pipe
I think the saddest part about Gummigoo's death isn't that he's gone- but that he might come back. Pomni would likely try to talk with him, But he won't remember anything. It'd be like if nothing ever happened.
The teapot is actually aan interesting computer in-joke in that it's a relatively 'easy' complex shape to test rendering on becauseit has curves and casts shadows onto itself.
Also a potential reference toRussel's Teapot.
> If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say
>
> That, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
Given the digital nature of the place as well as the nihilistic absurdism at play? I choose to believe both are at play.
To veer away the dread and despair, I'd recommend you to check out the animated series known as "Monkey Wrench" by Joshua Palmer. It's a show set in space following mercenaries aboard the "Monkey Wrench". It's wonderfully animated, the cast is very fun and the music is SO good. It's currently has a total of 3 episodes with the fourth getting its storyboards done with. I guarantee you a wonderful time.
Probably a good choice. 🤔
@@Airier Episode 3 is my favourite. It's when the show gets real good.
I dunno, the last couple of episodes definitely hit me in the feels in ways I wasn't expecting, so it's maybe not the best follow-up to this emotional rollercoaster...though I still recommend it nonetheless.
@@cartooncritique6625 Same. But by contrast it's very hopeful in comparison to TADC.
Since you’re doing indie animations (big like this or smaller) I’d recommend Monkey Wrench.
It’s about a space bounty hunter duo in the far flung future. It has amazing world-building and is absolutely hilarious. There are 3 episodes so far with a 4th being worked on.
17:49 well let me tell you...
"Augustus gloop. Augustus gloop. A selfish greedy Nincompoop"🎵
Or if you're a fan of the Classic
"What do you get when you Guzzle down sweets? Eating as much as an Elephant Eats..."🎵
The boxes are just a standard object in unreal engine, which is what most 3d animation is done in
17:48 Augustus Gloop was a kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who fell into the chocolate river and got sucked up into a pipe that goes to the fudge room. In some versions it's implied that he becomes made of chocolate.
RIP GummyGoo, you were a real one fr.
… Sometimes, it’s the GMPC who grows into an MVP by the end of a campaign, eh? >):^]
30:54 I think people in the circus cope differently when one of them becomes abstracted / essentially being dead. Ragatha and the others clearly are still hurtful of these events, and maybe at one point Jax was affected by them too. But eventually maybe Jax gave up giving a crap of presumably these things happening very often and he became numb to it. For a brief moment he gave a tiny ounce for Kaufmo and that was his quota. 😕
25:16 the teapots are a joke in the 3D community, it's like one of the first 3D models, and it's used as a joke, it was called as something but i can't remember it's like from 1970? Or around those years
Yet another banger from airier. Glad that you always add something to the stuff you watch
I would guess that Jax responded to "funeral service" which could hint to his life, potentially how he became sadistic?
I dunno about the warning about watching this if you are struggling with depression stuff. When I was really depressed, suicidally depressed, I watched people play Doki Doki Literature Club and that actually helped me and may have saved me. Getting to see characters put into words the feelings I had, go through the pain I had… it contextualized it for me and became an outlet for those feelings.
Whenever I’m really depressed or feel worthless or powerless or alone… I’ll watch or rewatch some existential horror story like Doki Doki or this.
Seeing Pomni go through her own issues and deal with her own depression and existential horror… has been really therapeutic for me.
Seeing someone else suffer through what you do… can really be a healing experience.
Obviously not everyone will get a positive outcome doing it, but I’d say give it a shot to see if it does help.
Not gonna lie, after Gummigoo... it may be a few weeks before I look at a bag of Gummi snakes or bears or whatever. Maybe a months before I eat any, too.
It took me a moment to realize the comedy mask got broken early on.
And the vomit is a picture of flowers stretched to a huge degree.
The area GummiGoi landed was an out of bounds model area. Devs usually keep a set of models either under the map or in a secret room so the game has a reference for what to use. Its like how in Skyrim, the corpse models dont get unloaded, they just get sent to a hidden room. Here though, its more or less having a spare replacement should an NPC break or get removed from the story too early. They're basicslly failsafe replacements
Im calling it now, Jax is going to be the Final Villain.
Always keeping everyone and everything at Arms length, no guard down and the brutal way he treats NPC's.
Kinda reminds me of those Kids who become..... school *youKnowWhat* later on.
I'm actually leaning more on him filling the male tsundere trope while Pomni goes down the crazy villain route
@@Airier That's a valid observation.
I've just known too many sociopaths and are related to a few. Plus the way Goose has spoken i nthe past about Jax has raised.... ALL of the red flags with me.
@@Airierit's either way that he feels bad about Kaufmo's death or that he had something to do with it and feels guilty 👀
In regard to the Cain maybe forgetting someone being an NPC or not thing, I'm betting that Zooble is the NPC (if the theory ends up being true). She's the only one that so far avoids going on adventures, and also she's the least humanoid looking "human" out of the entire group.
Also, that little scene where we see Jax briefly sad might not necessarily be about Kaufmo, but might mean that he lost a friend in that place.
What if you…
Wanted to go to Heaven…
But God said…
“Oop! Looks like one of these guys made it through!” _snap_
Imagine if the digital circus was just a metaphor for Hollywood
"I wonder if the AL stick around"
With Gumiloo I sure hope so
"Now we know what her insides look like." Giggity!
raises interesting question about if the npcs are actually any different from the people trapped
LMAO YOU FORGOT TO EDIT THE START OUT
What Pomni said? I think it was "trowing stuff to the wall" or something, I guess that means doing something but not knowhing how to do or what will happen and doing it anyway, like, better than doing nothing at all
They all human that trap in this virtual reality simulation, they just don't remember their past life and who they are but they remember some of it as well.
the possibility that an NPC is among them is not 0, but it's debatable that this thing already happened. Ragatha was questioning if it was ok for Gummigoo to enter the circus, even tho she knows he is an NPC. So either that already happened and she's not aware of it, or that was the first time.
Any of the main cast being an AI is very, very unlikely (to say the least), not only do all of them have a known age, but there also had never been AI this immersive. (New AI 57x more immersive).
I mean a life of LARPing in the Digital Circus could be pretty cool. No need to get a job or money, no need to pay taxes, no need to socialize with the scary judgmental people outside while still having interactions with real people (the few other humans)...
You can just spend time on your hobbies and visit crazy places and discover cool stuff that would be impossible in the boring real world. Your wildest fantasies can become true in this place.
It gets _risky,_ though, when you start losing track of what's _real_ and what's _fantasy_ -- we've already seen what happens when you _completely_ lose your grip on who you are, and spending all your time going on wacky LARPing adventures isn't likely to help _prevent_ that.
@@Nitrinoxus As far as we're aware, the characters abstract when they get crazy trying to find an exit that doesn't exist. And I know all of this isn't real, that wouldn't change. That's what makes it so awesome in my eyes. I could do whatever I want without limits since it's not real and doesn't matter.
@Oceane1803 As Ragatha explained it, chasing after an unattainable goal is just _one_ of the ways to steadily lose your mind at the Circus -- even if you accept that there's no way to leave, trying to wrangle your own sanity day after day is just as much of a losing battle, and Caine's random role-playing prompts aren't universally effective. That's why everyone's developed their own coping strategies, like Jax's abrasiveness and pranks, Gangle's emotional rigidity, Zooble's detachment or Ragatha's 'team mom' helpfulness: they're all trying to stave off insanity by focusing on maintaining what they consider the central pillar of their identities, and controlling what they _can_ in a world that _defies_ control.
After 500+ years your likely gonna regret it
@@chronodis I wouldn't be here for 500 years. This is still a show, and Pomni will definitly find the exit at the end of it. I doubt it will take nearly that long.
Arier I love you bro your honestly a the funniest yt reacter ive seen here befroe there are thousands of comments
The texture they used for the puke is the same texture used for metal mario in mario 64
The Fudge kinda reminds me of the Great Mighty Poo
I said the same thing, but apparently hes a reference to The Greedy from the raggedy ann musical.
The truck that they were driving aka gangle is a cake roll basically a cake rolled up has a whipped filling inside and sometimes it has jam or fruit ( ok I’m getting hungry 🤤 for that)
There is actually a theory that Cain did forget who was a NPC and who wasn't and there is still an NPC amongst the circus. Who is the NPC? None other than Jax. The reasoning is that none of the other Circus members needs to eat, they only do it to still feel human/normal. But Jax said in the pilot episode that he was hungry. His personality is also way different compared to the rest of the members.
Also fun fact: the poses that the one crocodile does when he holds onto the rope, is actually the taunt poses from the video game Pizza Tower.
episode 1 also has 310 million views
I have no idea why, like i love this show but everyone else seems to REALLY LOVE IT
17:50 Don't tell me he's never seen Willy Wonka or "Charlie in the Chocolate Factory".
Some people do watched (like me) but completely forgot about it
17:52 Augustus gloop from Willy Wonka. He‘s the kid that fell into the chocolate river
This episode makes me think about the AI characters I've been building, and it makes me feel... disquieted.
For me idk why but the carriage makes me think of the intro into Skyrim
17:50 Augustus Gloop? The fat kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Fell in a chocolate river.
Hold on I have a question if any one can answer why was Jax sad for a split second at the end of the episode
Pretty sure it's because they mentioned Kaufmo.
Omg I love your videos also that’s so sad I love Jax he’s my favorite it would cool though to like be sad not happy for once
For Jax to be sad for once not happy in one episode
As a captain disillusion fan, i have to say i am pretty sure the effect during pomni's dream is not a CRT TV effect, but rather a rolling shutter effect, the same effect that makes fans look like they are made of weird floating bananas
35:07 nah im depressed af but I find this kinda comforting knowing that could've been worse/ relatability/ this is (finally) getting represented in the main stream media (not for kids though xDDD)
17:48 this is a reference to the 2005 film “Charlie and the chocolate factory” where the fat kid gets sucked up the chocolate pipe and the oompaloompas start singing “ugustis, gloop, ugustis, gloop”
This also hints at that the time period is no lesser than 2005 since Jax would’ve had to watched that movie in the first place.
There is also the movie from the seventees with Gene Wilder.
Not to forget the book both are based on.
I think the more concerning implications with what Cain said is that he might have accidentally deleted a real person in the past.
I may have been the first few people to have seen Ragatha’s hair to look like Twizzlers.
i had the same idea, only it would be really easy for caine to check who was npc or not, BUT i think in the past he did let npcs and players mix and there were some points where he mistaken humans for npcs, so he got rid of npcs and now just doesn't let them in, probable even checking to make sure no one is an npc since they wouldn't show up in that map spot
I actually find it interesting how in Pomni's vision only Ragatha, Gangle and Zooble catch her. Could've been a simple choice in animation or delibatate symbolism.
If you look closely, Kinger's hand is there too, but because it floats and doesn't have an arm attached to it, it's very easy to miss.
And, there's no way it wasn't deliberate. Dreams are symbolic by nature, so bookending the episode with flashes of said dream being changed is a clear giveaway in this case.
@@1Synner Shit you right! Its just hidden behind all the others. My bad.
The moment I saw Pomni having her arms stretched out with the trucks, I immediately thought of Ice Age 2 because of Scratt. Watch the movie if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Theory time...
What if the Digital Circus's whole "Trapped in the Game" aspect was resolved ages ago and now our Players/Humans are A.I recreations that Cain made to keep himself company?
Or what if everyone's an A.I clone of people who Abstracted ages back?
Or what if Cain is a Player/Dev/Beta Player to The Digital Circus, and everyone else are A.I added in to keep HIM sane?
I could see Caine altering Gummigoo's memory too the point that, he still knows who Pomni is, he just doesn't remember how he knows her.
Did anyone else notice the background warping and moving behind Pomni under the map? Or am I just crazy?